Noelle Marketing ConsultingNoelle Marketing Consultinghttp://noellemarketingconsulting.com
Digital marketing and e-commerce advice without all the jargon.Mon, 15 Jun 2015 22:35:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.22Why Personalization Still Mattershttp://noellemarketingconsulting.com/personalization-still-matters/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/personalization-still-matters/#commentsMon, 15 Jun 2015 22:35:07 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=251Don’t underestimate the importance of even a little personalization in marketing. There’s a mid-point between generic marketing and big data science, and you can tap into it to drive customers back to your store. As marketers, we strive for cultivating…Read more ›

]]>Don’t underestimate the importance of even a little personalization in marketing. There’s a mid-point between generic marketing and big data science, and you can tap into it to drive customers back to your store.

As marketers, we strive for cultivating a genuine connection with consumers. We look for clever ways to entice them to want our products, often imposing a one-size-fits-all strategy on how we communicate with them. Sure, it would be great to be able to smartly consume and use the Big Data we have, but between the generic and the big data solution, there’s a waystation that can lead to quick dividends: Personalization.

Think about yourself as a consumer. In the physical world, you’re flooded with choices. Take a bookstore, for example: there are thousands of books to choose from. Rather than having to navigate the shelves to find that one book or subject that really interests you, imagine how great it would be for the salesperson to see you come in, recognize you, and say, “Hey, we noticed the last couple of times you were in here that you were interested in European History. Have you seen this book?” or “Hi! You’ve looked at books about knitting before; did you know we were having a sale on them?”

Of course, most salespeople will never have that level of customer connection at the store level. Sure, there’s the occasional exception – the barista with the incredible memory, or the wonderful local bookseller whose shop you’ve supported for years. But what the physical world lacks in scale, the digital world can easily create.

How can you personalize the marketing you send out to your customers? Take a store that offers baby supplies. A shopper first sets up an account and makes a first purchase – newborn diapers, wipes, pacifiers, swaddles, a What to Expect the First Year book – all indicators that the buyer is revolving around a newborn. Now, you as a marketer have a wealth of information about this customer, and multiple touchpoints which you can use to talk to them later. In 3 months, you can send them a newsletter on how to wean a baby towards solid foods. In 3 more months, you can talk to them about baby-proofing their house. All because you saw them come into your store and make purchases that told you something about where that buyer probably was in their life.

You could always send them the same marketing message you send everyone else. But that puts the onus on the customer to find what they’re looking for; as a marketer, you should be helping them to find what it is they need – and what they never knew they needed.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/personalization-still-matters/feed/0The Social Super Bowl: Who Won?http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/social-super-bowl-won/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/social-super-bowl-won/#commentsFri, 07 Feb 2014 19:33:34 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=246An interesting component of the last 5 or 6 Super Bowls has been the increasing importance that social media plays in the conversation around key cultural and athletic events. Case in point: last weekend’s Super Bowl, which had huge ratings…Read more ›

]]>An interesting component of the last 5 or 6 Super Bowls has been the increasing importance that social media plays in the conversation around key cultural and athletic events. Case in point: last weekend’s Super Bowl, which had huge ratings and even bigger social engagement. (If you live in or around Seattle, the game had a 97 share – that means that 97% of all televisions that were on during the Super Bowl were actually watching it – the highest ever, anywhere.)

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/social-super-bowl-won/feed/0Choose Your Weapon: SEO or Social Media? (The Guardian)http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/choose-weapon-seo-social-media-guardian/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/choose-weapon-seo-social-media-guardian/#commentsWed, 29 Jan 2014 23:16:55 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=241At a recent summit by The Guardian and Salesforce, experts debated the growing chasm between spending on social media (around 1% of marketing budgets) and the actual engagement and new content discovery opportunities associated with social media (vastly more than…Read more ›

]]>At a recent summit by The Guardian and Salesforce, experts debated the growing chasm between spending on social media (around 1% of marketing budgets) and the actual engagement and new content discovery opportunities associated with social media (vastly more than 1%). Link farms are no longer the key to raising your Google search relevance – Google is smarter and shrewder now. Learn more about the importance of Google, Google+ (yes, really) and how to accommodate the evolution of social media and SEO.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/choose-weapon-seo-social-media-guardian/feed/0The Five Superpowers of Marketing (Harvard Business Review)http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/five-superpowers-marketing-harvard-business-review/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/five-superpowers-marketing-harvard-business-review/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 19:05:02 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=222Are you a marketing superhero? That’s the question posed in a new article from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network in The Five Superpowers of Marketing. It’s a clever take on how to find the key components of your brand,…Read more ›

]]>Are you a marketing superhero? That’s the question posed in a new article from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network in The Five Superpowers of Marketing. It’s a clever take on how to find the key components of your brand, how to use social media to learn from the crowd, and how to structure your business to push your brand messaging to the right customers. While your business may not be the size of the companies discussed, there are key concepts to consider when looking at your business’ org structure, and how each person contributes to the whole.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/five-superpowers-marketing-harvard-business-review/feed/0Twitter Hashtags: How to Game the System (Infographics)http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/twitter-hashtags-game-system-infographics/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/twitter-hashtags-game-system-infographics/#commentsThu, 10 Oct 2013 16:56:13 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=211In a recent Annotated Graphic Series post on Twitter, we dissected the layout of a Twitter page, and mentioned the definition of Twitter hashtags: “Hashtags are how topics are quickly spread around the world. Like a mention, where the “@”…Read more ›

“Hashtags are how topics are quickly spread around the world. Like a mention, where the “@” automatically creates a link to that user, a “#” sign creates a hashtag which automatically links to any keyword. In this example, if I clicked on #autocorrectfail, it would show me the tweets of everyone who’d recently used the same hashtag. You can use this in your marketing to help other followers find you, based on search terms they might use or click on.”

We’ve since found two infographics, courtesy of Social Caffeine and Lori Taylor, which provide some quick and simple hashtags built for success – and how to use them. Take a quick look and see if integrating these tags into your posts help attract new followers.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/twitter-hashtags-game-system-infographics/feed/0Finding Your Audience on Social Mediahttp://noellemarketingconsulting.com/finding-audience-social-media/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/finding-audience-social-media/#commentsTue, 24 Sep 2013 17:01:41 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=205Don’t be discouraged by all the work it could require to touch all the different social media platforms out there – focus your efforts by finding the audience you want to engage. An updated view of social media demographics from…Read more ›

]]>Don’t be discouraged by all the work it could require to touch all the different social media platforms out there – focus your efforts by finding the audience you want to engage. An updated view of social media demographics from Business Insider provides some interesting insights into each of the major platforms. Among their findings:

Facebook still skews young, but the 45- to 54-year-old age bracket has seen 45% growth since year-end 2012. Among U.S. Internet users, 73% with incomes above $75,000 are on Facebook (compared to 17% who are on Twitter). Eight-six percent of Facebook’s users are outside the U.S.

]]>From the Huffington Post today comes an interesting infographic (click here for large downloadable version) from Jason King at 360incentives.com, highlighting 10 key points to consider when you’re looking to improve your customers’ loyalty. Some of the points are downright Pavlovian (“Quickly Reward Behavior You Want Repeated”), while others are more tactical and thought-provoking. We post it here as a resource for you to consider when thinking through your next marketing campaign.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/technology-can-improve-customer-loyalty/feed/0How to Create a Pinterest Business Accounthttp://noellemarketingconsulting.com/how-to-create-a-pinterest-business-account/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/how-to-create-a-pinterest-business-account/#commentsTue, 10 Sep 2013 19:52:01 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=162Why Pinterest? 70 million users, of which 80% are women – that’s why. With 2.5 billion pageviews per month, you need to incorporate Pinterest into your social media plan. Find out more on how in our tutorial below. If you have…Read more ›

]]>Why Pinterest? 70 million users, of which 80% are women – that’s why. With 2.5 billion pageviews per month, you need to incorporate Pinterest into your social media plan. Find out more on how in our tutorial below.

If you have something to sell that lends itself to beautiful imagery – say, products, or design, or photography – I can’t stress this enough: use Pinterest.

1. Set Up Your Account

First, you’ll want to set up your business account on Pinterest, here. Make sure you upload a square logo of at least 250×250 pixels. After you’ve filled out all required fields, and clicked on “Create Account,” Pinterest will ask you to follow 5 boards to get started. They want you to tell them what your interests are, so you can choose boards to follow by category. Choose a category and follow a few boards. To help move this tutorial along, I’m setting up my very own new Pinterest account, which you can check out to see how this whole thing works.

Once you’ve chosen 5 boards, click “Next.” Now you’re shown your business’s home page. It should looks something like this:

My empty home page, just waiting to be filled.

2. Verify Your Account

Pinterest will first send you an email to the address you used to create the account. Make sure you verify that email address – it’ll make things easier later on. Also, remember your URL – for example, ours is https://www.pinterest.com/noellemarketing/.

Next, verify your account. To do this, look in the upper right corner of your screen. You should see your company name and logo with a drop-down menu. Select “Get Started.” On the next page, you’ll see a red button, “Verify Website.” There are two ways to do this: either download the HTML file they offer, then upload it to your web server; or, add a meta tag they provide to the <head> of your index.html file. Verification is important – it lets all Pinterest users see your entire URL in your profile. There are some handy instructions here for commonly used web platforms.

Once your account is verified, you’ll see your full URL in your profile header:

That little red checkmark means we’re verified.

3. Create Your Boards

For purposes of illustration, I decided to add a board called “Smart Quotes,” so I can feature quotes along with images of the people who said them. It can be particularly challenging to determine what to pin, particularly when your business is somewhat virtual (as is mine). But I’m going to figure it out, and so should you.

4. Start Pinning

Once you’ve created your boards, you can start pinning to them. Look for the little “Add +” button in the top navigation bar of the site, and enter in the URL that contains the content (image) that you want to pin. For example, I took a quote I particularly liked from my earlier post Jeff Bezos and Customer Focus: “20 Smartest Quotes“, and used the image from that article and a quote that I liked. Note that, because I used the link to my blog to generate the pin, the link is embedded in that pin. In other words, if I click on that image of Jeff Bezos, I go straight to my blog. That’s good news.

This is what my new Pinterest board, “Smart Quotes,” looks like with its first pin.

5. Add More Boards and More Pins

Keep building your Pinterest presence. The pins don’t have to be generated solely by you – they can also be re-pins of other pins that you liked. Do a search on Pinterest around key search terms for your business, and see what pops up!

Note that, as you add new pins to your boards, the oldest pins will move down the page – but your first pin will be the board’s main image, unless you stipulate otherwise by editing the board.

Filling in my Smart Quotes board!

6. Search, Share, and Enjoy

Here are a few Pinterest business accounts to get you started. What will you pin?

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/how-to-create-a-pinterest-business-account/feed/0Jeff Bezos and Customer Focus: “20 Smartest Quotes”http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/jeff-bezos-and-customer-focus-20-smartest-quotes/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/jeff-bezos-and-customer-focus-20-smartest-quotes/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 22:33:28 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=148How much do you really focus on your customers? Build your business using Jeff Bezos’ revolutionary ideas about retail, marketing, and long-term thinking. When I first started at Amazon.com 10 years ago, many of the people who knew me best…Read more ›

“In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.”

How much do you really focus on your customers? Build your business using Jeff Bezos’ revolutionary ideas about retail, marketing, and long-term thinking.

When I first started at Amazon.com 10 years ago, many of the people who knew me best thought I was nuts. “They’ll be dead in a few years,” said one. “Don’t take stock!” said another. “You’re working for who?” said many more. Those conversations certainly changed quite a bit during the years that followed.

As it turned out, hindsight being 20/20 and all that, it was a very, very good move for me, and I’m proud to have been a part of that company’s incredible growth during the aughts. But some of the most memorable highlights of that 9-year tenure involve interactions with Jeff Bezos – at company-wide meetings, in smaller meetings, in emails. He’s bold, and he’s surprising, and he’s extremely smart. Customer focus is his passion, and his emphasis on that accounts for much of Amazon’s success.

With that in mind, I wanted to share with you the Motley Fool’s article titled “The 20 Smartest Things Jeff Bezos Has Ever Said.” Some of the quotes are funny, but many are extremely insightful, and turn conventional business thinking on its head. All of them point back to the same central philosophy: start with the customer, and work backwards.

One of the core tenets of Amazon.com’s expectations for its employees is “Be Right, A lot.” Reading through the quotes in this article, it’s not hard to see where that tenet comes from.

]]>http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/jeff-bezos-and-customer-focus-20-smartest-quotes/feed/1Using Social Media Demographics: 3 Best Practiceshttp://noellemarketingconsulting.com/using-social-media-demographics-3-best-practices/
http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/using-social-media-demographics-3-best-practices/#commentsTue, 03 Sep 2013 22:13:12 +0000http://noellemarketingconsulting.com/?p=136How carefully do you consider the details of your customers? Are they men or women? How much discretionary income might they have? Are they just starting out, or easing into retirement? Answering these few questions, and differentiating both the in-channel marketing…Read more ›

]]>How carefully do you consider the details of your customers? Are they men or women? How much discretionary income might they have? Are they just starting out, or easing into retirement? Answering these few questions, and differentiating both the in-channel marketing messaging and the landing pages they reach, can go a long way toward engaging customers in new and creative ways. Here are three ways to effectively use social media demographics.

In past landing page best practices articles on DigishopGirl’s blog, we’ve explored the importance of focusing on your customer when you build landing pages, in particular thinking about what they’ll want to see and whether that’s what you’re showing them. Let’s now think through both the landing page and the messaging that directs customers there, from the perspective of demographics.

For example, in a recent Pew Research Study, they found that women are more likely than men to use social networking sites, and that people ages 18-29 were the most likely to use social media – a whopping 83% of all internet users in that age range who were interviewed in that study. 67% of everyone they interviewed (all ages) used Facebook, and they found that Facebook is especially appealing to women, as is Pinterest. Twitter and Instagram are most appealing to urban residents.

So how do you use these trends to your advantage?

1. Know Your Social Media Demographics.

Consider your audience when building your social media presence. You wouldn’t canvas Twitter with offers to senior citizens. The audience isn’t there yet, and you’ll run the risk of spamming the customers you do have. Likewise, putting male-oriented images on Pinterest may not make sense just yet – but putting them on Instagram might.

2. Be Specific.

Use social media marketing tools (like Facebook Marketing) to reach the specific audience that you’re looking for – don’t throw out a big net and see what you can catch. You can use Facebook’s Marketing platform to target ads to specific customers, and you can use that service to find new customers too. But know who you’re talking to, and why. So think about how you can use social media’s vast demographic data and resources to find the specific customers you think will be most interested in what you’re selling.

3. Once You Have Them, Don’t Lose Them.

Have your landing pages cater to the audience you’re talking to. Again, we can’t stress enough that extra work up front can pay dividends later. If you have one marketing campaign that’s, say, talking to stay-at-home moms on Facebook, have the landing page that they reach when they click on it speak to them. Show them that you truly care that their experience with you is stellar.

Doing your homework ahead of time – and having a specific outreach plan for who you want to talk to and how – may mean that you talk to fewer people up front, but it will also mean that you’ll have a higher chance of converting those key demographics into long-term customers.